Fun in the sun

I would love to say I took advantage of the weather and did something fun, instead I was out working on the fascia for the garage. We have until the end of the month to finish before the 1 year permit runs out.

Mary and Anika decided to come out and see what all the fuss was about.

Anika loved being outside listening to the birds and other sounds of summer.
She wasn't as fond of the birds when she found out they pooped on her jump-aroo

What's new with Anika

Where to begin? The last month has been somewhat hard for the baby girl. She had a bacterial infection and now has bronchiolitis. The amazing thing is that you wouldn't know she was sick, she very rarely gets crabby about it. Sometimes I think she is faking it so Grandpa Mel can come and take care of her during the day, since she can't go to day care.

She is now sitting up on her own and loving it. She also started on solid foods.

So far she like squash, sweet potatoes and carrots. She doesn't like anything green. As you can see in this video



Here is her 7 month photo with lamb. She isn't too happy about laying down, she much preferred sitting up and eating lambs ear.

One thing she does like is going for a walk while riding in the Baby Bjorn with dad

She also likes standing any chance she can get. She supports herself rather well, but her balance is that of a college freshman leaving a kegger at three in the morning

Happy Mothers Day!

Happy Mothers day mom, Sue (mother-in-law), Donna (sister-in-law) and Sue (sister-in-law). I hope all the moms out there had a great Mothers Day. As you can see from the picture above, Anika's block skills are progressing quite nicely.

We were all set to have both sets of parents, my aunt and uncle, and the Hogans (my brother-in-law Paul's in-laws) over for a Mothers Day meal. Unfortunately Anika came down with bronchiolitis so we had to cancel. I guess one good thing to come out of it is that since we are going to re-schedule Paul, Sue and the boys should be back in the States and will be able to celebrate with us.

Even though Mothers Day should be a stress free day for moms, Mary's hasn't been. Her 3rd and 5th grade concerts are on Tuesday. Concert time is always hectic as Mary meets with kids before and after school to work on their performances. While she wears herself out, it is worth it in the end. You can see the kids enjoying it but mostly the looks on the parents and grandparents faces after the show is priceless.

In the past I have attended almost every concert she has put on (usually 3 in a year with two grades going on each night). This year I am staying home with Anika, while I miss the shows, I love getting to spend time with baby girl.

Trip to the Dr.'s

When Mary woke Anika up this morning she felt quite warm. So we took her temperature...about 5 times. The first 3 using the "under the armpit" method which we have found completely unreliable, the results were: 98.4, 96.7, and 97.9. Since the results were no where near believable we switched to the "up the butt" method or the technical term "rectal". Those two measurements yeilded 102.4 and 102.1.

My dad came over and I took Anika to the Dr. at 10:00. The poor little girl had a rough visit. The routine exam was enough to get her crying, but the real tears showed up when they did a white blood cell count test by pricking her finger. She was very unhappy at that point.

We left with a prescription for Amoxocilin and motrin. We have now found out how much fun it is trying to shoot a syringe of pink drugs into an unwilling child's mouth. I am certain that when they prescribe 4ml they are only expecting 1ml to actually make it down the childs throat, because she certainly spit at least half of it back up. Only 9 more days of this!

Easter photos

Putting up some photos from Easter. Right now both baby girl and dad are sick and not feeling well. Somehow she still manages to sleep through the night, me on the other hand can't fall back to sleep at 4 in the morning.

Here's Anika in her Easter dress with Grandma and Grandpa Melchior
Here she is later in the day with Grandma and Grandpa Zilge
A moment of contemplation

We went to my Aunt Jaci and Uncle Merle's for Easter, my cousin Kelly and her family came back from Michigan.

Here is Anika with Mike (Kelly's husband)
Anika was a hit with Kelly's kids as well. Ava and Jake were entertaining her

Enjoying spring

This morning I took Anika for a walk while Mary ran some errands, by the time we got home she was almost asleep. Her head was hanging down (I was using the baby Bjorn carrying her around on my chest), and her eyes were drooping. Today she was in rare form, you either got one her biggest brightest smiles, or you got the raspberries, there was no in between.

Amazing how everything in spring just pops. I was working in the garage today and was just flooded with sounds of spring: birds chirping, kids playing and dogs barking. I could smell the grills getting fired up later in the afternoon as well. So as I am typing this, I am sitting on the deck drinking a Mojo and heating up our grill. Beer tastes better in the spring and summer. Being outside drinking a beer and grilling, I can't help but get excited for thursdays music in Mears park, Grand Ol' Day and other outdoor festivities.

It is time to put the burgers on the grill, so I am out of here.

6 Months

Time for Anika's six month update. Here is her photo with Lamb, she is getting stronger and wants to sit up, as you can see it was tough to get a photo of her laying back on the couch.

At her six month check up she weighed in at 16.4lbs (57%) and was 26"(61%). She did great with her shots. She actually had stopped crying before we got up to the front desk to make her 9 month appointment.

She really loves playing in her Exer Saucer and is happy most of the time. Although when she isn't happy you can expect to get the raspberries from her.